Tuesday, August 16

A TALE OF TWO PRESIDENTS

Bush is the detached CEO, a man who got his position thanks to a lifetime of privilege; Johnson was a hands-on CEO who got the job after having worked his way up from the very bottom of the political world. Bush doesn't do details; Johnson pored over the aerial maps of Vietnam, hoping that he could pick a bombing target that would turn the tide of the war.

Bush doesn't go to funerals for our dead soldiers. Until last week, his administration had refused to release photos of the flag-draped caskets coming back to the United States. (The Pentagon caved as a result of a Freedom of Information Act suit.) When it comes to the second Iraq war, Bush displays no doubt, no anguish. And therein lies the key: It is that quality that made Johnson, for all his faults and failings, a great president. It's the same quality that exposes Bush as the wrong president at the wrong time, fighting the wrong war in the wrong place....Often, late at night, the president would go down to the White House Situation Room to check on casualty reports. At times, when Johnson sat with visitors in the Oval Office, he would weep openly as he read from the previous day's casualty lists."

Johnson felt the pain of others. And his courage and determination (along with the sharp prodding that came from Martin Luther King Jr.) to help the less fortunate forced Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act and Civil Rights Act. In doing so, Johnson achieved one of the great political -- and human rights -- victories of the last century.

W. doesn't do human rights. He doesn't do casualty lists. Nor, apparently, does he cry. And as noted by author James Moore, that's what makes Sheehan such a powerful figure. Sheehan has rendered the complexities and carnage of the war into a simple question: Are you on the side of a grieving mother of a dead soldier? Or are you on the side of a president who continues to insist that this war is, in some way, noble?

1 Comments:

Yes, I know this comment will never be published, as it exposes your uneducated biased views regarding LBJ for what they are...

You state: Johnson was a hands-on CEO who got the job after having worked his way up from the very bottom of the political world.

Yes, I finally stopped laughing long enough to write this comment.

If you really want to know who LBJ was, (which I really doubt) read A Texan Looks at Lyndon: A Study in Illegitimate Power:

The author, J. Evetts Haley exposes LBJ for who he really was.

Do you even have a clue regarding the relationship that this man LBJ had with JFK and RFK? He was VP for only one reason...Votes...He lothed the Kennedy's as they did him...And no, this is not conjecture. Had you lived thru that time as an educated adult, you would have been well aware of that relationship. As screwed up as GW is, he looks like a choirboy when compared to LBJ!

Unfortunately, I voted for LBJ BEFORE I got the chance to know him for who he really was.

Use the Freedom of Information Act to listed to some tapes from the oval office sometime. You will hear him saying, and I paraphrase, "What the hell happened here. How did we get so many troops in that goddamned country that I had never even heard of before. Now I don't know what to do to get them out...."

Don't believe me...do your homework. You will find this a TRUE synaposis of one of the recordings. After that recording by the way, he authorized an additional 300,000 troops to get the troop level OVER 500,000 by the time Nixon took office.

I only bring this up due to your cannonization of this crook rather than looking at him for the major thing he really did. Vietnam cost us 60,000 young lives, including my son and the sons of personal friends of mine, and over 250,000 disabled military men and women. The majority of the damage was done during his presidency. (30,000 lives while in office, 20,000 after he left office.)As this was a war that was not going to be ended by any president quickly after taking office behind LBJ, I attribute all the carnage to him and Kennedy. Would Kennedy have taken it as far as Johnson. I can't say. What I can say though is that the Kennedy set the table...Johnson brought the feast.

Yes, I really do wonder either about your motivations or your intelligence when you put an unethical piece of garbage like LBJ on a pedestal.

Ask more parents of Vietnam casualties about how they feel regarding LBJ. At least with GW's war, the country was rid of a tyrant. What was accomplished for 10 times the death count in Vietnam?

We have no business remaining in Iraq as there is no way to define what a win is in that type of conflict. We had no business in Vietnam...

Now that GW has done a repeat of the LBJ foolishness, when war is necessary, as it will be, we will probably have a president who will be afraid to act, subjecting our country to it's ultimate destruction.

Pay attention to history and quit trying to rewrite it as you did in a previous article that brought RFK back to life until 1972.

My Liberal Identity:

You are a Peace Patroller, also known as an anti-war liberal or hippie. You believe in putting an end to American imperial conquest, stopping wars that have already been lost, and supporting our troops by bringing them home.